Apple has just released its earnings result for the final quarter of 2017, and the tech giant has managed to register iPhone sales of 77.3 million units. While it is true that 77.3 million units sold is still an impressive figure, it does represent a slight decrease compared to Q4 2016’s sales volume (78.2 million units). And it should be mentioned that the previous year’s 78.2 million iPhone unit sales was a record quarterly haul for Apple.
Still, Wall Street had set great expectations for the fourth quarter of 2017, projecting that Apple would sell up to 80.2 million units of its iPhone devices, especially with the buzz generated by its iPhone X flagship, which is supposed to celebrate the decade long existence (and dominance) of the iPhone.
Sure, Apple did not quite hit the 80 million iPhone unit sales mark, but it did do well to register a 13 percent increase in revenue year over year (despite everything else that has been going on). What happened was that even though the company experienced a slight dip in unit sales, the high price of its iPhone X (which industry watchers are saying was the top selling smartphone in the world during the holiday shopping season) has driven revenues and profits to stratospheric levels. It also helps that the average price per iPhone during Q4 2017 was around $40 higher than it was during Q4 2016.
All of the factors mentioned in the preceding paragraph has contributed to Apple posting an all time high fourth quarter revenue of $88.3 billion (with $61.58 billion of that from iPhone sales). The company also finished 2017 with a record quarterly profit of $20.07 billion (or $3.89 earnings per share), improving upon the $17.9 billion (or $3.36 earnings per share) it had registered during the same quarter the previous year.
Even Apple’s iPad business has shown some growth in terms of shipment volume and revenues. During the final quarter of last year, the tech giant shipped 13.2 million units of its tablets, which is up 1 percent. The company also recorded a 6 percent bump in iPad sales. This uptick can be attributed to tablets starting to attract buyers from the business and education sector.
Apple also revealed that its services division (which includes the App Store and Apple Music brands) had accumulated revenues of $8.47 billion (up 18 percent compared to the previous year’s) during the last three months of 2017.
